October, 2021
The “lake” next to the Ike Kinswa campground is called Mayfield Lake. This lake wasn’t originally a lake. Before the dam was built, there was just a good sized river here (the Cowlitz River), with many creeks feeding into the river. Now, after construction of the dam, the water that’s held behind/above the Mayfield Dam has become a sizable and lovely lake … Mayfield Lake. It’s a very pretty lake where one can go kayaking, or fishing, or swimming (in hot summer months). You can see lots of birds here. You can sit and enjoy the scenery. The over-all flow of the water here is still the Cowlitz River, a tributary of the great Columbia River.
I walked and drove around several access roads to the lake numerous times during my camping trip here. Here are some of my first photos of this pretty autumn lake. I will likely post a few more photos from other viewpoints over the next few days. 🙂
The roadway/bridge above is the route to the Ike Kinswa State Park. No freeways nearby … no towns nearby … nothing but woods and water and wildlife.
After crossing the bridge, and across the road from the entrance to the campground, there is another road that leads into a state park day-use area, also right on the lake. Nobody here but me this day.
There is a large picnic area here (below), right on the edge of the lake. Since the lake edge is full of large, sharp, rocks and boulders, they don’t want people clambering down there. But, hmmm, I don’t know, if I were a kid, I might clamber down there anyway and then I might get my foot caught in those logs. Maybe even if I were an adult, that might happen. The log structure along the shoreline seemed odd to me. Does it to you?
But the beauty outweighed any thoughts of danger, that’s for sure. Autumn is a wonderful time of year to travel, and to rest quietly in the real world.
On down the road just a mile or so, I passed the three folks below.
Two of them looked at me a lot (the two on the right above), but then they made it obvious they had no use for me. Those two just kept munching away on that nice green grass.
But the one on the left finally decided to look my way, then walked slowly and calmly, but directly and purposefully over to me, right up to the barbed wire fence. It even bumped the wire fence with its nose or it likely would have kept coming.
What a beauty. 🙂 You never know when you’re going to find a friend.